For the fourth year in a row, Indigenous Ipili leaders from Porgera in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have been in Canada to protest ongoing severe environmental impacts and human rights abuses associated with Barrick’s Porgera mine.
“We are here to say that the human rights abuses by Barrick’s security forces and by the PNG troops that Barrick is housing and feeding are still ongoing in spite of damning reports from Amnesty International in 2010 and from Human Rights Watch this year,” says Jethro Tulin, of grass-roots human rights group Akali Tange Association.
Alleged rapes, beatings and killings by Barrick’s security forces at the Porgera Joint Venture mine have been documented by a research team from Harvard University and New York State University, as well as by Human Rights Watch. Abuses by PNG troops that are housed, fed and supplied with fuel by the Porgera mine have been documented by Amnesty International.
See http://www.miningwatch.ca/en/indigenous-papua-new-guinea-leaders-protest-ongoing-abuses-barrick-s-porgera-mine.
Barrick Gold is a Canadian company that is the world’s largest gold producer and in which a number of UK-based funds invest (see http://moneytometal.org/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=Barrick&go=Go).